|
|
|
The west end of
this little church is approached through two gate posts directly from the main
road.
The picture below
shows detail of the rather ornate and slightly top-heavy clock. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust,
services are still held about three or four times a year, but no more as it is
a redundant church, the benefice being united with that of the neighbouring
village of Stadhampton.
This is an unspoiled and unaltered Georgian chapel
built in 1762. It was beloved of John Betjeman, who penned the following verses
in its honour:
|
Verses turned in aid of A
Public Subscription (1952)
towards the restoration of the
Church of St
Katherine,
Chiselhampton, Oxon. |
| |
Across the wet November
night
The church is bright with candlelight
And waiting Evensong.
A
single bell with plaintive strokes
Pleads louder than the stirring
oaks
The leafless lanes along. |
| |
It calls the choirboys from their
tea
And villagers, the two or three,
Damp down the kitchen fire,
Let
out the cat, and up the lane
Go paddling through the gentle rain
Of misty
Oxfordshire. |
| |
How warm the many candles
shine
On Samuel Dowbiggin's design
For this interior neat,
These high
box pews of Georgian days
Which screen us from the public gaze
When we
make answer meet. |
| |
How gracefully their shadow
falls
On bold pilasters down the walls
And on the pulpit high.
The
chandeliers would twinkle gold
As pre-Tractarian sermons
roll'd
Doctrinal, sound and dry. |
| |
From that west gallery no
doubt
The viol and serpent tooted out
The Tallis tune to Ken,
And
firmly at the end of prayers
The clerk below the pulpit stairs
Would
thunder out "Amen". |
| |
But every wand'ring thought will
cease
Before the noble altarpiece
With carven swags array'd,
For there
in letters all may read
The Lord's Commandments, Prayer and Creed,
Are
decently display'd. |
| |
On country mornings sharp and
clear
The penitent in faith draw near
And kneeling here below
Partake
the Heavenly Banquet spread
Of Sacramental Wine and Bread
And Jesus'
presence know. |
| |
And must that plaintive bell in
vain
Plead loud along the dripping lane?
And must the building
fall?
Not while we love the Church and live
And of our charity will
give
Our much, our more, our all. |
| |
John
Betjeman
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The gallery is
approached up a steep and narrow staircase immediately inside the door at the
west end of the church. What quire there might have been who used this gallery
we do not know, nor where John Betjeman obtained his references from, but it is
reasonable to suppose that there was such a quire. The neighbouring village of
Marsh Baldon
did have a quire,
and one of the manuscripts they used has been preserved. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Two views of the three-decker pulpit - the Clerk would have sat at the extremely small desk in the
adjoining pew to the left of the pulpit.
This is a seventeenth century pulpit,
being a survivor from an older church on the same site.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reading the lesson at a west gallery Evensong on 23rd September
2001, Amelia Murphy from the west gallery quire Sussex Harmony. Members
of the Oxford west gallery quire Oxford Occasionals were augmented for
the day by members from a number of other similar quires* in the south of
England.
|
|
* For details of west gallery
quires, please
link here to
the West Gallery Music Association web site
|
|
|
|
|
Details of the pews. The
larger pew at the front was probably for the squire who lived in the adjoining
Manor house, now called Chiselhampton House. This was designed by a London
architect, Lancelot Dowbiggin, who possibly also may have had a hand in the
design of the church. (This point has not been proved.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The large pew immediately
under the pulpit was eventually taken over by the Harmonium, which no doubt
replaced the village band as provider of music in church |
|
|
|
ACCESS
The church lies to the north of the
village, and about 500 yards to the north of the Coach
and Horses Inn, on the
left of the busy B 480 road about five miles south east of Oxford. The easiest
way of obtaining access during opening hours is to ask anyone serving behind
the bar to borrow the (large) key, otherwise access is obtainable through the
Vicar or Churchwardens who live in the neighbouring village of
Stadhampton.
|
|
|
|
Photographs: ©
2001 Edwin Macadam
|
|
Please see our Home Page
for important copyright
notice |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SEARCH THIS SITE |
|
|
This
site has been constructed by, and remains the copyright of,
its authors,
Edwin and Sheila Macadam,
Shelwin, 30, Eynsham Road, Botley,
Oxford OX2 9BP
|
|
| ©
July 2001 -
|
|
|
